updated 01:50 pm EDT, Thu October 14, 2010

Verizon says not involved in Clearwire auction

Verizon Wireless is reported to have denied considering buying spectrum from Clearwire. This comes after several reports maintained the carrier, along with competitors AT&T, Deutsche Telekom, Sprint and Time Warner Cable are vying to buy mobile airwaves in an auction from Clearwire. The seller is trying to raise at least $2.5 billion to help build out its 4G network by selling as much as 40MHz of spectrum in each market.

"We're not participating in the Clearwire auction," said Verizon spokesperson Nancy Stark.

Clearwire said it is willing to take funding in the form of debt with either an equity investment from a strategic partner or funds from the sale of its wireless airwaves to finance the build-out.

The company is in a race to get a full WiMAX network before the competing 4G format, LTE, gets significant traction in the US. Verizon's network goes live within weeks in 38 cities, just a short distance away from the 54 of Clearwire and Sprint, but should be roughly twice as fast in real-world conditions. AT&T and T-Mobile are also expected to have LTE networks of their own in 2011.